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| Chinese DF-21D Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile |
By Prashanth Parameswaran
The former director of the Missile Defense Agency offers a stern warning.
China is challenging all major foundations of American military power, a former U.S. defense official said in a speech Wednesday.
Since the end of the World War II, U.S. military superiority has relied on three major foundations, Trey Obering, the former director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), told an audience at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. These were superior strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities (ISR); the ability to project power globally; and an overwhelming dominant technological advantage across a spectrum of conflict.
But China, Obering said, was now challenging all three of these major foundations of American power.
“I believe that China is challenging the United States, specifically targeting our strategic ISR, our power projection capabilities, and our technological advantages with their missile programs,” he said.
Obering, who had a military career spanning 35 years before becoming executive vice-president at Booz Allen Hamilton, addressed China’s threat to each of these three foundations in turn.
Read the full story at The Diplomat